Hey, Man, What's for Dinner?

By PILAR GUZMAN

Published: August 28, 2002

FIVE days a week and often on weekends, Robert Rosenthal cooks breakfast and dinner for his wife and two daughters. His wife, Carolyn Kremins, doesn't cook at all.

"It's an amazing luxury because it gives me some time when I get home," Ms. Kremins said. "It's a point of pride for me."

Ms. Kremins, 40, is the group publisher of The Week, a Manhattan-based news digest. Mr. Rosenthal, 43, is an advertising executive. He is also among the 27 percent of American men who, according to a study conducted at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, act as primary food handlers for their families. These are men for whom grocery shopping, cooking and the semi-regular dinner party are as intuitive as reaching for the sports page.

But as more men go into the kitchen, more women are heading out, often with a smile on their faces. Professional kitchens have long been the domain of men, a fact that has hindered the rise of women as professional chefs. But at home and to the secret delight of women around the country, the rise of lower-pressure supporting roles for women in the kitchen might just be the ultimate feminist victory.

"I have no sense of regret that I don't cook," said Doreen Small, an intellectual property lawyer in Manhattan, whose husband does the bulk of the family's cooking. "I could cook anytime I wanted to and if I felt it would give me some pleasure." But she doesn't. "More power to him because he loves it," Ms. Small added.

Men's cooking for their families is also big business. "Growing male interest in cooking is one of the bright spots in the kitchen retail market," said Hugh J. Rushing, the executive vice president of the Cookware Manufacturers Association. "People used to think cooking was a sissified thing."

Used to — and then, "Bam!" The percentage of men in the audience for the Television Food Network's programs is 42 percent and rising, according to the network; for the shows of some chef-personalities, notably the voluble Emeril Lagasse of "Emeril Live" and the antic and flame-haired Mario Batali, star of "Molto Mario," the numbers are even higher.

"When we do our marketing for prime-time," said Adam Rockmore, the network's vice president for marketing, "we are looking for a 50-50 male-female split, because that is where we think it's heading."

Examining specialty cookware sales is another good way of tracking male dollars spent in the marketplace, Mr. Rushing said. "Men tend to have no problem buying a special pan for paella, if the recipe calls for it," he said, "whereas women will make do with a regular skillet or pan." Specialty cookware sales are up 17 percent since 2000, he added.

According to Dr. Ross Koppel, an adjunct professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, the rise of men as primary family cooks began in the 1980's. The trend toward men cooking, he said, is part of a general one toward "the yuppification of what we eat" that has forever raised the stakes and expectations for the food Americans put in their mouths — not to mention the requisite gadgets used to prepare it.

"It's only since men have been cooking that you can justify the $275 knife," Dr. Koppel said. All of which has led, in some homes, to the replacement of trophy heads on the walls of the den with glistening granite trophy kitchens packed tight with All-Clad pans and stainless-steel professional-style appliances.

Such trappings aside, though, the notion of a man actually in that kitchen, a domestic gladiator basking in the blue glow of his humming Viking range while sprinkling $25 sea salt from Brittany into pasta water, is a relatively new one.

Indeed, a majority of men still don't have anything to do with the kitchen regularly. Instead, they limit their appearances to preparations of one or two signature dishes: Dad's banana pancakes, for instance, or his blue-ribbon chili or top-secret hamburger mix.

"When men cook it's on special occasions, such as at barbecues or under exceptional circumstances," said Samantha Kwan, who is writing her doctoral dissertation on food and identity for the sociology department at the University of Arizona. Indeed, as sociologists have long argued, a man's interest in food preparation is directly proportional to the approval he receives from his audience. A seminal academic paper on the subject, Ms. Kwan said, is "Making Pancakes on Sunday: The Male Cook in Family Tradition," published in 1983 by Thomas Adler.

"The ability to cook well is impressive and gets you enormous kudos," said Brian Loube, 37, a new-media producer in Manhattan who has always cooked for his girlfriends. That praise, he added, "is certainly a big reason to do it."

Women are well aware of that rationale, and act accordingly.

"I do the baking, shopping and chopping," said Sheri Warshaw of Westport, Conn., whose husband, Jeffrey, regularly cooks meals for her and their children. "But Jeffrey is the star of the kitchen."

Indeed, many women who have found their husbands or boyfriends increasingly in the kitchen say that the key to keeping them there is never to steal the limelight.

"I'm lucky enough to have a husband who cooks for me, and I'm nothing but proud of his talents," Mrs. Warshaw said. "Often, Jeffrey will stay home and cook while I go to the beach with the kids."